We need to produce healthy, clean, safe, ecologically sound and spiritually energized - foods for generations to come, while tending to the environment wisely. It's that simple.
As a child, my parents had a culture of food and drink, of gardening and living close to nature - even though they both had "regular" jobs - that gave me inspiration beyond what I think they may have intended. I was fascinated with their love of working with nature. It was artful, subtle, visceral and as natural and important to them as their own relationship. They also talked about the importance of beauty, health, and the natural environment for one's soul's happiness. It was a compliment to their work, their intellectual pursuits, to the pressures of regular life.
I spent most of my childhood, especially the summers in my parent's garden. It was rich in color and diversity - a combination of food production and artistry. They combined the productive gardens with the landscape around our home, something like a small, integrated park, with trees large and small, some fruit bearing - and other areas less cultivated, but cared for even if left alone mostly. It was a dreamy place, where I was allowed to play and at times was asked to help out. Mostly, I just hung out with them, while they worked and puttered around, seemingly effortlessly.
During the summers when I was 12 and 13, they sent me for severals weeks both summers to a farm belonging to friends of the family and it was there, that I also discovered agriculture - and learned how to work, how to care for farm animals and crop. Between my parental gardens of vegetables, herbs, flowers, table grapes, ornamentals and trees - and the cattle, hogs, hay making and sweet smelling milk (and homemade ice cream) I experienced on that farm - my vocation was unfolding.
Along the way, I learned about both modern farming and agricultural science, about industry, chemicals, technology - and about how farming and gardening had changed dramatically over the last 200 years. I also learned that with progress came costs. Some of those costs, seemed to me unacceptable: substantial soil erosion, toxic water pollution, species depredation, loss of biodiversity - and with these, loss of health and sustainability. These became professional concerns and reference points for research. My heart told me this was wrong and my mind sought alternatives. Along the way, I discovered biodynamics, organics, agro-ecology, permaculture and the ecological farming history of Native Americans and indigenous peoples around the world - as well as the history of farming in places like Europe and India.
It became clear to me, early on, that a comprehensive understanding of healthy farming systems and healthy nutrition had developed over many, many centuries - all over the world - and that modern, industrial and corporate agriculture had a different set of goals than simply a healthy agriculture. These are mostly short term share-holder profit maximization. Although profit is not a dirty word by any means, making profit by any means might be considered a dirty business. Mining soils and destroying habitat in the name of short term profit taking seemed increasingly to me not only non-sustainable, but some sort of mental short circuit. After all we are the care-takers of the Earth and of the health of our time and future generations. Why can we not find ways to have both a healthy agriculture and make profit for those involved?
All these thoughts, and the feelings cultivated in me through my parents and subsequent farming experiences, led me to seek positive alternatives. Alternatives that are not pie in the sky, but healthy, successful alternatives to abusing nature. We cannot continue to pollute and destroy our natural habitat and poison our foods and that of all creatures on Earth.
Similar to (in my own, perhaps less grand manner) our former Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, I sought to understand history, philosophy and religion - as best I could in the context of my vocation - and found in many places alternatives to the current paradigm en vogue.
"I realized
that Eastern thought had somewhat more compassion for all living things.
Man was a form of life that in another reincarnation might possibly be a
horsefly or a bird of paradise or a deer. So a man of such a faith,
looking at animals, might be looking at old friends or ancestors. In the
East the wilderness has no evil connotation; it is thought of as an expression
of the unity and harmony of the universe."
William O. Douglas
Many cultures, probably all, have much to offer agriculture and nutrition and no amount of "progress" can ignore the fact, that there is much to be learned from others. Intellectual humility is the basics of science and probably not a bad approach generally.
At the same time, modern, especially American agriculture has brought us a level of food availability like no other culture or place I have seen or read about. (This does not stop us from having hunger in our country, but this sin is a matter of social policy and economics rather than one of farming and gardening per se.) Food availability is essential. No one should have to hunger under any circumstance. The food quality, however, should also not suffer, from any point of view. Modern science, technology and industry have brought so much in the way of efficiencies, prosperities and opportunities - we should not throw out the baby with the dirty bathwater. How can we use the best of what science, technology and industry has to offer for an ecologically healthy future? How can we incorporate the deep wisdoms of holistic health and healing into our food production and nutritional approaches? How can we be economically efficient and ecologically healthy? And what about the spiritual side of life? Connecting and cultivating the spirit as part of our professional practice?
Early in my development, I encountered biodynamics, Rudolf Steiner's philosophy and visited several biodynamic gardens and farms. I was struck by the authentic effort to work with and in nature both gently AND effectively, by the steadfast belief in working not only with substance, but also with forces - and by the healthy looking and extremely tasty foods, I was served. I was intrigued and enlightened by Steiner's spiritual insights and practical suggestions and felt a deep kinship with his spiritual approach, ethical individualism and fundamental notion that all life is essentially spiritual, only temporally physical. I was already sensitive to forces, energies and spiritual beings and Steiner helped me find form and discipline, humility and focus in my search and research, work on myself and in my profession.
Since those very early, first farming summers, a good 40 years have past - and since encountering biodynamics 36, almost 37. I had the good fortune of excellent vocational-technical training, years of practical in the field agricultural experience, continuing education, subsequent farm management positions, great mentors, eventually also outstanding academic training and then the opportunity to both farm at home and teach college agriculture. Many years of work as an agricultural consultant both part and full time in North America and overseas deepened and broadened my understanding and appreciation of the promise and limitations of ecological farming practices. My respect and dedication to ecological farming and to biodynamics in particular grew steadily and has been my greatest professional joy.
Clearly, without a doubt, to produce healthy, spirited foods, we must find ecological methods and economic models that work well in each place, in each circumstance. Biodynamics, organics, agroecology, permaculture, community supported agriculture, farmer's markets, direct marketing, local production focus - and other such methods are a God-sent. They show us ways to move with and beyond mere technological advancement (which is of course also so important) towards a renewal of agriculture that incorporates our science, our industry, our economic mind-set into a healthy vision and practice of feeding our families, our neighbors, all humans and all creatures of the Earth.
Biodynamics, however, also has something additionally very unique to offer: a spiritual understanding of the practical, a spiritual approach to understanding human nature, the Earth's natural worlds and the influences of the cosmos above on life here below. It is both a practical and spiritual approach, grounded in the spiritual, focused on the practical. This is what intrigued me most: how working with the spiritual in nature, can enhance the quality of our agricultural practice and products.
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